Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Hugh Laurie, Iain De Caestecker, Helen McCrory, Olivia Vinall, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Jennifer Hennessy, Anna Francolini, Tony Pitts, Danny Ashok, Shalom Brune-Franklin, Emma Cunliffe, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Millie Bradley, Katie Leung, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Kate Lamb, Yolanda Kettle, Alice McMillan, Nicholas Rowe, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Caroline Lee-Jones, Pip Torrens, Natalie Drew, Saskia Reeves, Crystal Clarke, Sarah Greene, Adelle Leonce, Patricia Hodge, Tessa Banham, Guy Henry.
British television has long searched for another Francis Urquhart, another political character to whom the wheels of motion are under their direction, the art of the scheming government player who sees the ultimate prize as a stop gap to further imposing their own dogmatic view on the world around them. Long and hard has the search been for such a character as charmingly cold, as manipulative, as calculating as was brought to life by the tremendous Scottish actor Ian Richardson in Michael Dobbs unequalled trilogy of power, deceit, betrayal and scheming backing-stabbing Shakespearian-like drama.
Long searched for but rarely even in the same ball-park as Francis Urquhart in the House of Cards trilogy, it seems you can only bring true justice to such a role if you are parodying the political giants of the day, and to be fair to British television there really has been nobody of such stature in the last 30 years in which to base such a character upon; there may have been crisis and spectacle, catastrophe and disaster at every turn of Government in the last decade, but such occurrences have been met with the equivalent of political ineptitude, political pygmies holding office, to which is a parody in itself.
The mind of David Hare has perhaps come the closest to capturing such a politician, and by making Peter Laurence appear to be more charmingly good than downright Machiavellian, Roadkill captures a mood to which the viewer can feel the tension that comes with the maxim, “That every political career ends in failure“ and one in which they wish to see as Peter Laurence manages to stay one step ahead of everybody, despite his own stack of cards constantly looking as if they are going to topple over and ruin him at every turn.
You don’t make friends in politics, you make calculated acquaintances to whom either owe you favours, or you keep by your side because they know too much about you.
It is in this arena that David Hare’s four part drama series works conclusively and with great entertainment, not least because of Hugh Laurie’s sublime performance as the politician, but to perhaps the closest character on screen to Francis Urquhart in a long time, Julia Blythe, played with unnerving fascination by the talented Olivia Vinall. Like a spectre at the feast, Julia Blythe is always there when the wheel needs to turn, proving that it is the Civil Service who run the country, and not the imagined elected members of Parliament to whom we pledge smiles and damning when all goes right or catastrophically fails.
Witty, underhand, and able to stoke division in one great scene after another, Roadkill might not be House of Cards, but it is on the right track to greatness.
Ian D. Hall